tui-ascii-artPyPI
Advisory published Updated
tui-ascii-art is a confirmed malicious PyPI package (MAL-2026-2117) that steals credentials and exfiltrates sensitive data (malicious versions 0.1.0, 0.1.1). Do not install it — remove it immediately and rotate any exposed credentials.
Malicious code in tui-ascii-art (PyPI)
What this malware does
These packages are used as build dependencies of malicious packages in newer waves of the campaign 2026-02-urllib-slim. They are used to split the malicious action between dependencies and are not malicious alone, but are used together to: exfiltrate information through DNS, collect information about the processes and covering tracks by installing packages from local private repositories.
Package nspack additionally notifies upon importing a domain known for malicious activity with the package and hostname.
Category: MALICIOUS - The campaign has clearly malicious intent, like infostealers.
Campaign: 2026-03-geekennedy
Reasons (based on the campaign):
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The package contains code to exfiltrate basic data from the system, like IP or username. It has a limited risk.
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The malicious code is intentionally included in a dependency of the package
Malicious versions
Indicators of compromise (SHA-256)
Detection & response playbook
Credential / info stealerFind it
Search your lockfiles and build artifacts for tui-ascii-art (2 malicious versions).
If you installed it — respond
tui-ascii-art is built to steal secrets, so assume every credential the build or runtime could read is compromised. Remove it from your project and lockfile, then rotate ALL exposed secrets — npm/registry tokens, cloud keys, CI/CD secrets, SSH keys, and any .env values — from a known-clean machine. Audit logs for unauthorized use of those credentials.
Did it already run?
If tui-ascii-art was installed, its post-install payload may already have run. Removing the package does not undo that — check outbound connections and credential use from the install window onward.
Frequently asked questions
Campaign
References
Credits
- Kamil Mańkowski (kam193) · analyst
Detect & block this
O3 blocks tui-ascii-art-class packages before install and in CI — and if it already ran, its runtime egress monitoring catches the credential exfiltration and severs the channel.